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The Hole-y Army, Dirty Disco, some naked strangers I hugged, and other Toronto Pride pictures
For yesterday's Dyke March, we joined the Hole-y Army, a critical contigent in the dyke march that carried "hole" puppets to remind ourselves and everyone else that all genders belong at Pride, and it is a political event -- anti-racist and class struggle should be always be a part of queer politics.
My phone takes bad, 5-second videos. But hey! Check out the holes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTWCPCU1ngU
(That black thing zooming in front of the lens is my hole. It was hairy, and not too heavy, if you're curious.)
One more chant: "We're here, we're queer, we're fabulous -- don't fuck with us!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2EiJ0K2h3w
Here's all the holes, laid out at the barbeque after. And also a balloon!
Our next stop, after a few hours of very important drinking and foot-massaging, was the Dirty Disco -- free, all ages, and it kicked so much ass. But don't take my word for it, watch this brief but illuminating video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ikJtPxL-fo
OK, so that was just five seconds of horrible noise. Turns out my phone's just not made for that. Here is a video from the DJ's youtube instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVgdkLm4Ygc
Sunday, I brought a real camera. I'm not really into rainbow flags and gay marrying, so I stuck with the genderfucking and sex radical shots (where I could find them... as the dyke selling handmade strap-on harnesses from her friends' recycled pant waists put it, "sex?! At Pride?! But that's not family-friendly!"). And yes, I did buy a C.U.M. Rag, and I got a really cool thank you card for my CLGA archivist from the same artist. Also snapped pics of Toronto District School Board queer youth, HIV/AIDS resistance, some sci-fi looking queens that I don't even know why they were dressed like that, and a cat rescue. (A sexy cat rescue. For real.)
He's looking at my shirt. It says "Pussies Unite!" (Feminism > penis.) The guy who took the photo for us was naked, too.
We were on the CUPE Ontario float, representing for queer labour, throwing swag to the masses, and trying very hard not to fall over. It was busy, and everybody wanted shit.
And look, one last awful five-second video. They want pink bandanas! Give them more pink bandanas! The masses loved the CUPE swag, and I loved chucking it at them.
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I found my hole on the puppetmaker's blog. http://hole-y-army.tumblr.com/post/25433117366/fantasy-hole-we-were-told-to-make-more-imaginary
It was very fuzzy.
And I found the CUM rag artist's blog! http://www.tasteslikebabysoul.blogspot.ca/2012/04/cum-rag-female.html I don't see a post with images of the "male" CUM rag, but the general aesthetic is the same.
One of my old high school teachers -- a TDSB veteran and true Crazy Cat (Dog, Rabbit, Horse, Rat, Hamster, Bird, Goat...) Lady -- writes from Facebook:
Incidentally, while I took some of the photos with the intention of sharing them with Andrea (who was once part of a collection of teachers who put together an anti-homophobia workshop for a student who made homophobic comments and anyone else who wanted to go, but has since moved away from Toronto) on Facebook, I asked her to comment here in part to combat the chilling effect created by the activity feed.
Some blog readers who are external to AU are mentioning having problems with the comments field -- one a few weeks ago told me she couldn't pass the captcha after several tries, and the comment above was also a no-go after a couple of tries.
I've been checking into this captcha problem. It seems that some browsers (IE or Chrome, but not Safari or Firefox) think that the non-secure Google-hosted recaptcha form embedded in the secure Landing page might be a security risk so, if you've applied strict security settings or ignore the message that pops up over-unobtrusively in the browser, it will block it, with the result that Google thinks you entered nothing and so rejects it. There's no simple solution here apart from educating people to use smarter browsers or to encourage them to allow the content through when they get the popup warning.